Our thorough explorations of all the nooks and crannies of the eclectic electronic rabbit hole continues, and this time, it’s personal.
In case you have followed my recent scribings, such as my articles about Maenad Veyl and S Olbricht (here and here) most recently, you probably expected me to continue on that path, and would be right about that. The general umbrella of electronic music spreads over so many mind-bendingly amazing artists that one human life couldn’t possibly suffice to writing about all of them, but I keep on cherry picking some of my favourites to push on this platform because 1) I have the ability to do so and 2) read 1) again. While I find plenty of enjoyment from everything from blunt raw techno to the most floaty fragile ambient shenanigans, I find myself mostly gravitating towards a certain lo-fi aesthetic that has both ear candy production as well as idiosyncratic compositional elements, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that today’s artist flourishes in that exact field of grainy music.
Huerco S. is one of the pseudonyms of one Brian Leeds – a pioneer of outsider house and experimental deep house genres – also known through his other endeavours such as Pendant, Loidis, Royal Crown of Sweden, and West Mineral Ltd. In-depth articles could be written about any of this Kansas-born artist’s projects, but today we’re all about Huerco S. as that’s the first of his that I came across, and the one that struck me the most. Originally discovered through the same playlist I mentioned on my S Olbricht piece a few weeks back, I want to now underline that the playlist was actually an Opal Tapes discography one. Just throwing it out there; if you’re a nerd like me, always looking for that new perplexing musically twisted and conscious-altering good stuff, keep tabs on Opal Tapes for your own sake. Anywho, onwards.
Huerco S. has released three full-lengths and a plethora of EPs, spanning a rather vast array of tonalities from crackling rhythmic techno-oriented electronica to swaying and swooning ambient textures. Each of his releases carry their own identities and unique angles, all of which however fit under this single moniker with ease. Simply put, there’s a whole lot to spend immeasurable amounts of pleasant time with, and next we’ll go over as much of it as reasonable within a single article.
The first thing I recall hearing was “Press On (Ruff Rub)”, from his EP Untitled, that came out via the aforementioned Opal Tapes (hence in the playlist, duh). Built on samples, steady percussions, and aerial leads, all filtered through a lofi lens, I was hooked immediately. There was just something so profound and deeply affecting around each and every corner on that release, that it instantly pushed me to the fields of strange nostalgia, reminding me of things that either were or weren’t, hence inflicting this sort of an instant link between myself and the artist. My memory’s been fucked to hell for as long as I remember (near-accidental pun right there), so finding those kind of nuanced trifles of resemblance from somewhere external has always been both quite unsettling and fascinating.
For an example, upon first hearing Colonial Patterns, I was instantly re-living my day to day life over a decade ago, recognizing familiar hues, sounds, and feelings, even though I actually heard the album significantly later. The album itself, being Huerco S.‘s debut, is a full-fledged and complete piece of art that I tend to revisit on a regular basis these days. Rhythmic and granulated, simultaneously callous but warm, it’s aesthetically not unlike the past life I had that came to a complete and abrupt end recently. Each song on the record feels and sounds like a fragment of an unspoken moment, and it’s easy to get carried away with the music when your mind automatically frames certain fleeting experiences anew with the sounds, as if suddenly met with sort of a forced reflective surface.
Taking Colonial Patterns apart would do injustice to the entirety, but you can have tracks like “Struck With Deer Lungs”, “Prinzif”, or “Fortification III” as taste tests and I’m somewhat certain you’ll find yourself in similar position as me, reflecting upon reflecting upon reflecting, while still finding it pleasant and satisfactory. There aren’t too many artists that manage to take you away into actually off-putting and distressing mental states while acting as a shield in-between, allowing you to look at things from a distance while being able to fully entrust yourself into its aural lap. I’m aware that for others, dealing with such connotations is simply just unpleasant, and I understand that perfectly fine, but I’m sure many of you can also relate to this.
It was interesting to hear the follow-up album For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) right afterwards, as you can tell the same artist operates behind the veil, yet the focal point has shifted to way more texturized and prolonged, sort of ambient house motif. Overall maybe more well-rounded, For Those Of You… is definitely more dense and stylistically compact when compared to its predecessor, which isn’t to say it’d be better or worse, as much as just underlining how it’s different. I do love the more background-suited approach, where songs like “Promises Of Fertility” and “The Sacred Dance” soar from the speakers and catch on to the walls, slowly expanding towards the ceiling and the hardwood floor alike, enveloping the entire room.
Immersion is without a doubt one thing where Huerco S. excels to an ungodly degree, and on this album it’s especially tangible, overwhelming even. The other day I was listening to the opening track “A Sea Of Love” while cooking, took a glance at the living room and saw my two-year-old daughter just sitting on the sofa and staring out of the window. I asked her if she saw something outside or why she stopped playing with her blocks and wooden train sets, and her answer was ‘shush, I’m listening‘, without looking back at me. She didn’t add anything, and neither did I.
Only later on I went back to listen to the EPs that came out in-between Colonial Patterns and For Those Of You… and had a few senile-ish-ass lightbulb moments. As said above, I initially heard the two albums back to back and the separation felt rather remarkable, but in hindsight when taking Apheleia’s Theme, A Verdigris Reader, and Railroad Blues into account, the shift suddenly became less massive. It’s 100% on me for overlooking the EPs, granted that discovering the artist’s trajectory in a more nuanced and elaborate manner after my initial one, actually made me value each of them more, in some weird way. I do think that Huerco S. is best experienced on longer form releases because of the immersive aspect mentioned above, but the shorter releases have a microcosm of their own that’s equally worth every second of your time, whether in past, present, or future tense.
The thirty-one minute granular ambience cloud Quiet Time from 2016 was the artist’s last release under the moniker for the following six years, marking an end to a rather busy schedule (I didn’t even mention all of the smaller releases here, mind you) that ran for a good bit. Perhaps foreboding with its title, Quiet Time strips off all rhythmic elements and focuses solely on hovering and wide scale transformations, being a meditative and serene, albeit to an extent melancholic, listen that sounds like a fitting end to the artist’s initial era. It’s a mellow and fuzzy endeavour that will jerk a tear or two out of you if you just let it take ahold of you and take you where you need to be taken to, even if only for half an hour. I recommend you to take that trip.
Then along came 2022 and Plonk.
Plonk runs for an hour and consists of ten songs, each of which shares the same titular name with just Roman numerals running in order. I’m not entirely sure what I exactly expected, but this wasn’t it. Was it bad? Fuck no. Was it something I couldn’t have guessed in this life or the next? Well, yeah.
The entirety of Plonk is based on percussive works that bear resemblance to some dub and club oriented shenanigans, with some additional sprinkles of things that echo the past days. The leap from the previous release to this one is far greater than the one between the first two albums, and it’s equally rejuvenating as it is attention catching. The last song “Plonk X” is the only one that really reminds you of who Huerco S. is, or rather was, but the whole album is still filled to the brim with out there ideas that make it a gripping listen, not in the least due to the rather hypnotic execution of the instrumentals. Taking into account the amount of collaborational efforts the artist’s taken part in around and after Plonk‘s release, it’s easy to tell that another shift in the general focal point is bound to happen, or is in-progress. Is that in itself surprising? Not really. I just hope there’s more of where this came from.
And with that, we come a full circle with this piece, which turned out maybe not-so-oddly way more meandering article than my usual nonsense ramblings, and that’s something. Oh well, it is what it is. Go listen to Huerco S. at your earliest convenience, if you haven’t yet done so, for some reason. You can also follow Leeds on Instagram. I’ll go back to whatever it is I was, or wasn’t, doing, and emerge later with another one of these things. Until then, ta-da.
